Category Archives: Nano Medicine

Post navigation

Supersonic Flight

NASA engineers have captured the first images of the interaction between shockwaves from a pair of flying supersonic aircraft — and they are stunning.

“We’re seeing a level of physical detail here that I don’t think anybody has ever seen before,” senior research engineer Dan Banks said in a NASA press release. “Just looking at the data for the first time, I think things worked out better than we’d imagined.”

“We never dreamt that it would be this clear, this beautiful,” physical scientist J.T. Heineck added.

Making Waves

When an object moves faster than the speed of sound, it causes rapid air pressure changes called shockwaves.

To record the interaction between shockwaves from two craft, NASA had two T-38 jets from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base fly at supersonic speeds, with one jet about 30 feet behind and 10 feet below the other.

NASA then flew a B-200 King Air aircraft in a holding pattern at an altitude of approximately 30,000 feet. Using a special recording system, including a camera capable of recording 1,400 frames per second, the team then captured footage of the two T-38s as they passed about 2,000 feet below the B-200 at supersonic speeds.

“The biggest challenge was trying to get the timing correct to make sure we could get these images,” sub-project manager Heather Maliska said. “I’m absolutely happy with how the team was able to pull this off… They were rock stars.”

Sounds Great

When shockwaves merge, they produce sonic booms, loud noises that are one of the reasons supersonic flight is currently restricted over land. NASA is developing a craft called the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology X-plane that’s designed to fly at supersonic speeds without producing any sonic booms — just a quiet rumble.

However, if NASA hopes to convince regulators to change existing restrictions on supersonic flight over land — and enable travelers to get from one part of the U.S. to the other far more quickly — they’ll need to be able to produce highly detailed, statistically sound images of the upcoming X-59 demonstrations.

And now, the agency knows it has an imaging system capable of producing those photos.

“I am ecstatic about how these images turned out,” Heineck said in the news release. “With this upgraded system, we have, by an order of magnitude, improved both the speed and quality of our imagery from previous research.”

Seaweed Sippers

More and more locations are starting to ban these straws, but rather than asking people to live a straw-less existence, a startup called Loliware thinks we should provide them with an environmentally friendly alternative — and that’s why they’re now proposing we sip our sodas through seaweed.

Breaking It Down

Loliware has developed a straw that the company’s sustainability adviser, Daniela Saltzman, told Business Insider “looks, feels, and acts like plastic.” However, it’s actually created out of “hyper-compostable” seaweed that biodegrades much like a banana peel on land and breaks down in weeks in water.

“A disposable product that’s built to last for centuries — i.e., a plastic straw — makes no sense,” Saltzman said, “but one that can be composted or safely biodegrades in the ocean, that’s obviously fine.”

This summer the company will begin shipping its seaweed straws to several customers, including hospitality chain Marriott and beverage company Pernod Ricard.

By the end of 2020, Loliware expects to be able to produce 30 billion straws in a variety of styles, according to a Fast Companystory, and it’s aiming for a production cost about the same as paper straws.

Grasping at Straws

Loliware isn’t the first company to produce an alternative to plastic straws, but existing options leave much to be desired.

Reusable stainless steel straws can be a pain to clean, bamboo ones can leave a woody taste in the drinker’s mouth, and glass straws are a bad idea for klutzes prone to dropping things.

Paper straws are disposable, so that’s a benefit, but they can also become mushy quickly and cause whatever you’re drinking to taste like, well, paper.

According to Loliware, its seaweed straws only start to turn soft after 18 hours of use. They also have a “neutral” taste, CEO Chelsea Briganti told Business Insider, and while the straws are edible, she doesn’t recommend eating them.

“It can be eaten, but this is not a food per se, or a snack,” she said. “Don’t expect to eat your whole straw as if it’s a candy.”

Panic Chute

A Business Insider investigation into Facebook’s security practices provides a riveting look at how the company protects its celebrity executives — but the strangest revelations were about the company’s extraordinary efforts to keep CEO Mark Zuckerberg safe.

One persistent rumor exemplifies the company’s apparent paranoia: Workers at the social media giant claim that the company’s security staff installed a secret “panic chute” at the company’s headquarters that Zuckerberg’s security detail can use to evacuate him in the case of an emergency.

Zuck Truck

Facebook’s executive-protection team is run by a former U.S. Secret Service special agent named Jill Leavens Jones, according to BI, and she has serious resources to protect Zuckerberg, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and others — including a $10 million annual budget dedicated solely to protecting the CEO and his family.

That funding has led to some futuristic security features, according to BI‘s investigation.

In addition to the rumored panic chute, Zuckerberg himself has access to a room with bullet-resistant windows and a “panic button.” Nobody is allowed to park in the spot in the parking garage directly below his desk for fear of car bombs.

Friends Forever

The strangest takeaway from the story, though, isn’t what Facebook does to protect Zuckerberg from stalkers and potential threats — it’s the company’s efforts to protect him from Facebook employees themselves, who aren’t even allowed to take photos of the enigmatic CEO.

“If you’ve ever been close to his office, you’ll see there are big burly people sitting there staring at screens,” one Facebook employee wrote on Quora. “They pretend to be software engineers, but everyone knows that they are security guards.”

Project Wing

Google parent company Alphabet is gearing up to launch what the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports will be the world’s first commercial drone delivery service, which will fall under its Project Wing arm.

But Alphabet may be in for a fight before the delivery program takes flight in Australia by this coming June, according to the ABC — because local residents are furious about the idea of buzzing drones invading their community.

The Sky is Falling

Alphabet says its drones will be able to deliver coffee, food and medication — but residents of Canberra, where the program will take place, are worried about what it’ll be like living among the drones.

“Things fall out of the sky, it’s quite hard to get drones to work properly, it’s quite hard to deal with drones when they lose communications… we should be treating it that way and applying the precautionary principle and getting out ahead of the problem,” said Roger Clarke, a professor at Australian National University.

Robotics Technologies

“We’re trying to be as transparent and as open as we can,” Project Wing CEO James Burgess told the Canberra Times.

But not all residents are convinced.

“That is what is going to happen with some forms of these new robotics technologies unless corporations deal the public in, and get the downsides understood and prevented or mitigated, and they’re not doing it,” Clarke said.

Machine Journalism

In November, the news website Quartzunveiled a bold idea: a studio, funded by the Knight Foundation, dedicated to reporting the news using machine learning techniques.

Today, the Quartz AI Studio’s first story dropped — and it’s an intriguing peek at how advancements in artificial intelligence could provide journalists with new tools for digging into public documents.

Face Lyft

For the story, Quartz reporters trained an algorithm to examine the section of ride-hailing app Lyft’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) that lists risks the company anticipates — and to identify the most “distinctive,” or unusual, things that rattle Lyft’s executives.

The resulting list of Lyft’s unusual concerns range from the fairly obvious to the moderately surprising. In addition to having concerns about “public perception,” the company’s leaders are also worried about how healthcare privacy laws will affect customers who use its service to catch rides to medical appointments. They’re also sweating whether cyberattacks could affect Amazon Web Services, which runs its platform.

Data Journalism

Quartz’s Lyft story isn’t the most groundbreaking work of journalism in the world, but it’s an interesting proof of concept about how reporters can leverage new tools to pull interesting takeaways from otherwise dry public records — and, perhaps, a preview of things to come.

“This is taking [data journalism] to the next level where we’re trying to get journalists comfortable using computers to do some of this pattern matching, sorting, grouping, anomaly detection — really working with especially large data sets,” John Keefe, Quartz’s technical architect for bots and machine learning, told Digidayback when the Quartz AI Studio first launched.

Kill Switch

AI arms control is all “fun and games” until someone accidentally recreates Skynet.

When looking to the future we can’t ignore the possibility of a potential artificial intelligence arms race as nations rush to outpace one another. That’s exactly the sort of future that former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is afraid of. Speaking last Thursday at a three-day event celebrating the opening of a new school of computing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kissinger warned that AI weapons might become harder to control than nuclear ones. Such systems will be developed in secrecy leading to a dangerous arms race, as Kissinger said according to MIT Tech Review, “With AI, the other side’s ignorance is one of your best weapons—sharing will be much more difficult.”

Powder Keg

It isn’t the first time Kissinger, a controversial figure in American foreign policy, has warned of the potential dangers of AI technology. In an op-ed for The Atlantic Kissinger opined that the U.S. government should “consider a presidential commission of eminent thinkers to help develop a national vision” on AI. He’s not alone in that consideration.

Last month, a group of experts — including ethics professors and human rights advocates — called for a ban on the development of AI-controlled weapon systems over fears that there are too many questions left as of yet unanswered such as “who is responsible when a machine decides to take a human life?”

Progress Marches On

Still, despite concerns, nations continue to develop tanks, planes, and bipedal androids. Just last month, President Donald Trump issued an order encouraging the United States to “prioritize AI”, lest the US fall behind other nations in AI development.

While AI still has more jovial applications which are being explored, like generating cat pictures and creating works of fine art, autonomy continues to creep into weapon systems development causing a backlash from the employees of companies like Google and Microsoft. The uncertain future and unbound potential of AI may require more reflection from humanity before we act on AI.

Heated Situation

No bigger than an ordinary watch battery, adding this little sensor to firefighter’s gear could help save lives.

Researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario announced on Friday they had created a fireproof, self-powered sensor that could be used to track people working in high-risk environments, such as firefighters, steelworkers, and miners. The research team – from McMaster, UCLA, and University of Chemistry and Technology Prague – published their work in the journal Nano Energy.

Cool Gadget

The self-powered sensor is embedded in the sole of a boot or under the arm of a jacket, areas where frequent motion can be registered by the device. The friction of motion generated in these areas charges the sensor, similar to the static charge you sometimes generate by sliding your socks on the carpet. If motion stops, the device alerts someone outside the hazardous area so help can be sent.

“If somebody is unconscious and you are unable to find them, this could be very useful,” said Ravi Selvaganapathy, a professor of mechanical engineering who oversaw the project. “The nice thing is that because it is self-powered, you don’t have to do anything. It scavenges power from the environment.”

High heat environments have posed a challenge to similar sensors. The new sensor is self-charging, since most batteries breakdown in hot environments, and thanks to its key material, a new carbon aerogel nanocomposite, it successfully withstood temperatures up to 300° Celsius (572° Fahrenheit), around the temperature most wood starts to burn.

Stayin’ Alive

The research team is hoping to connect with a commercial partner to help make the device more accessible to a larger market. Such a device could make a world of difference to those working in hostile environments and particularly to local fire departments.

“It’s exciting to develop something that could save someone’s life in the future,” said co-author Islam Hassan, a McMaster PhD student in mechanical engineering. “If firefighters use our technology and we can save someone’s life, that would be great.”

Networked

Once relegated to coffee shops, by 2020 there will be more than 549 million global public and cable company-run Wi-Fi hot spots. As we strive to browse more, stream more, and download more, our networks will need to scale up to meet consumer demands. Enter two different visions on how companies plan to fulfill that need. While cellphone carriers can’t quit Wi-Fi just yet, that doesn’t mean they aren’t eyeing the exit. Developing 5G cellular networks will increase competition between cellular network providers and Wi-Fi connection providers, according to a new analysis from the Wall Street Journal.

Two Houses

Wi-Fi and cellular networks are similar in that both will enable you to stream Netflix’s Black Mirror, or whichever show you’re streaming at present. The major differences are that cellular networks provide coverage over a large area through cellphone carriers like AT&T and Verizon, while Wi-Fi covers a more localized area and delivers a connection to the internet from Internet Service Providers.

5G networks promise to more cheaply link multiple devices to cellphone networks which network providers would love as it means more traffic and more revenue. Ronan Dunne, head of Verizon Communications Inc.’s new consumer-focused unit, told the WSJ that many customers should be able to get rid of Wi-Fi at home once 5G is rolled out and new technologies spread its signal throughout homes. But to see a world without Wi-Fi, device manufacturers would need to replace almost all the internet-connected machines on the market, adding the cost of a cellular chip to gadgets currently without one.

Wi-Fi networks are also growing into a new generation of their own. A trade group of companies which provide Wi-Fi connectivity called the Wi-Fi Alliance recently announced Wi-Fi 6 as the industry designation for its own next generation. Wi-Fi 6 boasts faster download speed, faster even than early 5G spec, although it will depend on the capabilities of your home router.

Next Wave

Both Wi-Fi and cell network providers are in a race to offer the best connection in a bid to win over consumers. While the jury is still out on whether or not 5G connectivity will be beneficial to consumers the Federal Communications Commission is taking the first step in opening up the bandwidth of radio frequencies both forms of next-gen networks will depend on. Impressive strides are being made in an attempt to demonstrate the feasibility of new networks, such as the first 5G-powered surgical telementoring. Whether consumers are ready or not, new networks are coming.

Autonomous Parking

After successfully launching early on Saturday morning from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SpaceX’s next-generation passenger spacecraft Crew Dragon has docked itself to a free dock on the International Space Station at 5:51 am EST this morning.

Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques, two astronauts currently on board the ISS, started preparing to open the hatch that leads to the Crew Dragon from inside the station when it docked. Once they got inside, they were greeted by SpaceX’s dummy “Ripley.”

Active Docking

It’s yet another historic moment for the Crew Dragon mission as the docking procedure is quite different this time when compared to previous Dragon missions: “Dragon was basically hovering under the ISS,” said Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of mission assurance at SpaceX during a pre-launch briefing on Thursday. “You can see how it moves back and forth and then the [Canadarm] takes it to a berthing bay.”

In contrast, the Crew Dragon’s docking system is active, he said: “it will plant itself in front of the station and use a docking port on its own, no docking arm required.”

A New Visitor

Five days from now, Crew Dragon will undock and makes its long way back to Earth. This time around, it will splash down in the Atlantic Ocean — previous (cargo) Dragon missions have touched down in the Pacific.

Happy Birthday

The world can be a harsh place, particularly in the first few months after a baby is born. During those precious moments, a newborn is exposed to a flurry of new experiences and stimuli including, unfortunately, foreign bacteria. Sepsis, the result of a bacterial infection in the circulatory system, is a major cause of infant mortality even in developed nations.

Rapid diagnosis of ill babies is important but can be a challenge in hospitals due to ambiguous clinical signs and test inaccuracies. Now, researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philidelphia (CHOP) have found that by feeding machine-learning models regularly collected clinical data, they could identify cases of sepsis in newborns hours before they usually would. The research team published its findings in the journal PLOS ONE.

Quick Learners

To develop machine-learning models capable of detecting sepsis, the research team trained algorithms on retroactive sets of data with the goal of identifying sepsis at least four hours before clinicians had suspected the illness.

Using electronic health record data, such as vital signs like blood pressure and temperature, from 618 infants in the CHOP neonatal intensive care unit from 2014 to 2017, the team trained eight machine-learning models to compare vital signs to 36 potential indicators of infant sepsis. Because the data was retroactive, the research team was able to compare the machine-learning models’ accuracy to clinical findings. Of the eight models, six were able to accurately identify cases of sepsis up to four hours earlier than clinicians had.

Dr.Algorithm

The team concluded that with additional data to train on the models could become even more accurate over time. “Because early detection and rapid intervention is essential in cases of sepsis, machine-learning tools like this offer the potential to improve clinical outcomes in these infants,” said Aaron J. Masino, lead author of the study. According to Masino, the team’s findings are a key step in developing a real-time tool for use in hospitals. By following up with more clinical studies the team plans to evaluate the effectiveness of such a system in the hospital setting.

Indecent Exposure

The Wall Street Journalcalled it “the worst job in technology” in 2017.

Content moderators at Facebook have the gruesome job of weeding through hundreds of videos of violent murders, hate speech, and even suicides — and that’s bound to take a heavy toll.

On Friday, two former Facebook content moderators signed on to a lawsuit in a California superior court, alleging that they also suffered from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and psychological trauma, CNET reports.

The original lawsuit dates back to September, stating that contractors have to view thousands of “videos, images and live-streamed broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide and murder” every day, according to an official press release — and Facebook is not doing enough to protect them.

“This case has uncovered a nightmare world that most of us did not know about,” Steve Williams, a lawyer for the firm representing the content moderators, said in a statement, as quoted by CNET. “The fact that Facebook does not seem to want to take responsibility, but rather treats these human beings as disposable, should scare all of us.”

Facebook has some 15,000 content reviewers, all of whom don’t actually work directly for Facebook, but have signed contracts with third parties like Accenture and Cognizant.

The Trauma Floor

Friday’s news comes after The Verge reported on the horrible and traumatic working conditions for content moderators at the social media company.

“Part of the reason I left was how unsafe I felt in my own home and my own skin,” an unnamed employee told The Verge, adding that they started carrying a gun to protect themselves after being accosted by other employees.

Others resorted to doing drugs or even having sex as a way to cope with the trauma. “I can’t even tell you how many people I’ve smoked with,” one employee told The Verge.

The Defense

In a November 2018 court filing, Facebook argued that the original lawsuit filed in September should be dismissed.

Bloomberg reported this week that Facebook is working with Accenture, a staffing firm that employs many of Facebook’s content moderators, to ensure that their practices comply with Facebook’s policies.

Messages circulating via internal message boards tried to dispel concerns over the abuse. In a post onFeb 25, Justin Osofsky, VP of Global Operations, wrote: “We’ve done a lot of work in this area and there’s a lot we still need to do.”

“After a couple of years of very rapid growth, we’re now further upgrading our work in this area to continue to operate effectively and improve at this size,” he added.

To the ISS and Beyond

“To be frank, I’m a little emotionally exhausted,” Musk said at a post-launch press conference at four o’clock in the morning on Saturday. “Because that was super stressful. But it worked, so far.”

The private space company has achieved a lot within the last 48 hours. Their futuristic passenger spacecraft Crew Dragon launched early Saturday morning from the Kennedy Space Center and successfully docked autonomously with the International Space Station some 26 hours later.

If all goes well, two astronauts will fly on board the spacecraft to the ISS as soon as July.

Beyond Earth’s Orbit

But, as expected, Musk has much bigger plans — for traveling to beyond Earth’s orbit. “We should have a base on the moon, like a permanently occupied human base on the moon, and then send people to Mars,” Musk said at the press event. “Maybe there’s something beyond the space station, but we’ll see.”

The Starship Enterprise

Earlier this year, Musk admitted that he wanted to get to the Moon – and “as fast as possible,” he wrote in a Jan 31 tweet.

The vehicle that could fulfill that dream: the stainless-steel monstrosity dubbed Starship. But getting Starship to the Moon will be a much harder feat to pull off than any NASA project ever.

“It won’t be easy for us or SpaceX,” Walt Engelund, director of Space Technology and Exploration Directorate at NASA, told Business Insider in a February interview.

But one step at a time. “We’ve got to focus on getting [the Crew Dragon missions] right, for sure. That’s the priority,” Musk admitted at Saturday’s press event.

Bad Timing

Last week, Tesla announced plans to cut the prices of eight of its vehicle models. That’s great news if you’re looking to buy a Tesla. But not-so-great if you already own one.

Some owners saw the value of their EVs decrease by tens of thousands of dollars overnight, leading to a slew of Tesla protests overseas — and the outrage could hurt Tesla’s chances of success in the world’s most promising EV market.

Slashed Prices

On Thursday, Tesla announced that it was finally selling a long-promised $35,000 Model 3. In addition to that price reduction, the company also cut the starting prices of its Model S and Model X vehicles by $12,000 to $18,000, and other versions of the vehicles saw their prices decrease by up to $18,000.

That’s nothing compared to the impact of the new pricing on some overseas markets, though. According to an article by Electrek, some Model S and Model X vehicles now cost more than $30,000 less, and in Taiwan, the price of the Model S P100D dropped by almost $100,000.

Upset that Tesla cut the value of their vehicles overnight, some owners began railing against the company through social media.

“I received Tesla’s Model X on February 25, and I only drove this car for five days before Tesla announced a price reduction of 174,300 yuan ($25,989.87),” wrote Weibo user Luweijuzi, according to a report by Chinese newspaper The Global Times. “I’m probably the most unlucky new buyer.”

Some owners posted banners critical of the new prices at Tesla’s physical stores, while others staged in-person protests at the company’s Supercharger stations.

A Lot to Lose

Solidifying a place as a leader in that market could be huge for Tesla, and just a few days before the pricing announcement, The Global Times published a piece noting how Tesla’s future in China looked bright thanks to the nation’s growing middle class.

However, if these protests lead to any sort of anti-Tesla sentiment in China, the company could lose its momentum in the country long before then.

Model Y

The same day, Musk announced big news about Tesla, his electric car company, on Twitter: Tesla’s Model 3 successor, the Model Y, will be revealed at an event on March 14 in Los Angeles at which attendees will be able to test ride Tesla’s newest car.

Sounded Good

Musk also offered up some further details on Twitter about Tesla’s upcoming SUV: it will be about 10 percent bigger than the Model 3, while also costing about 10 percent more. The range will be impacted due to its bigger size and weight, while still featuring the same battery as the Model 3.

Much-Anticipated

Musk first teased the Model Y in 2015, saying it will be an intermediary crossover SUV that’s larger than a Model 3, but smaller than a Model X. The CEO also teased that it will have falcon-wing doors, but on Sunday Musk corrected himself, saying it will feature “normal” doors.

The car will share many similarities with the Model 3. According to a letter from Musk to shareholders in January, the Model Y will share 75 percent of its components with the Model 3 and be built on the same platform. According to the letter, many Model Y cars will be produced in Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada, despite rumors it was going to be built in Shanghai, China.

Mars 2020

After landing the world’s first rover on the far side of the Moon early this year, China already has far more ambitious plans in the works: sending a rover to Mars.

“Over the past 60 years, we’ve made a lot of achievements, but there is still a large distance from the world space powers,” chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program Wu Wiren said ahead of the opening of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, CNN reports. “Next year, we will launch a Mars probe, which will orbit around the Mars, land on it and probe it.”

Race to Mars

China’s space program has rapidly picked up pace. Its Yutu 1 rover landed on the Moon in 2013. A second rover landed on the far side some six years later, and a third rover will follow at the end of this year, with the goal of returning to Earth with at least four pounds of lunar soil and rock samples.

But increasingly, China’s space agency has been focusing its efforts on the Red Planet. This weekend, China opened its first Mars simulation base in Qinghai Province at a location known to have similarities to the Martian surface. The base can house 60 people in its futuristic capsules.

Catching Up

China won’t be the first nation to explore Mars. NASA, for one, has a considerable head start: Its Jet Propulsion Lab has so far sent four remotely operated rovers to the Martian surface to look for signs of life gather scientific data about the distant world.

Both NASA and the European Space Agency each plan to send new rovers to Mars as soon as next year. But China is making a substantial effort to catch up.

Nationalized 5G?

Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection team is backing controversial plans to have the government manage 5G wireless networks in the U.S., Politico reports.

The plan is for the government to take specific frequencies in the 5G spectrum and sell them off wholesale to U.S. wireless providers.

That would also mean more access to rural Americans according to Trump’s team. “A 5G wholesale market would drive down costs and provide access to millions of Americans who are currently underserved,” Trump’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told Politico. “This is in line with President Trump’s agenda to benefit all Americans, regardless of geography.”

Earlier this year Trump voiced his support for rolling out 5G connectivity on Twitter. “I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible,” Trump tweeted. “It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind.”

Attempt Number Two

A similar plan that leaked in 2018 suggested that the government should provide its own infrastructure and allow carriers to use it. A senior official at the time who spoke with Reutersstated, “We want to build a network so the Chinese can’t listen to your calls.”

But the plans immediately received pushback from the wireless industry. Even Trump’s own FCC chairman Ajit Pai called the idea of a nationalized 5G network “a costly and counterproductive distraction.”

How these newly revealed plans differ is still not one hundred percent clear. The idea is to open up wireless spectrums the Defense Department is currently using and partner with third party operators, Politico reports.

Formula E

Mercedes-Benz’ racecar has some beastly specs: 0 to 60 mph in 2.7 seconds and a total weight of nearly 2,000 pounds, largely thanks to the 52kWh battery pack. Top speed: 174 mph (280 km/h).

To put those numbers into perspective: a Formula 1 regulation racecar for the 2018 season had to have a minimum weight of 1638 pounds (734 kg). Their engines achieve close to 1000 horsepower.

A big difference between Formula E and Formula 1 is that automakers in the former are allowed to develop their own drivetrains, as The Verge points out. That’s a big deal for an EV: it means everything hooked up to the battery pack can be determined by each automaker.

Budget Racing

That’s proving to be a big draw for EV automakers: they can use the vehicles to showcase both their drivetrains and electric car offerings.

Formular E’s 2019/2020 season — the sixth so far — is set to kick off in December in Saudi Arabia’s Ad-Diriyah Street Circuit.

Growing Potatoes

China began construction on the base in June. According to a July report by the South China Morning Post, the plan for the base includes a “Mars community” and a “Mars camp” designed to educate and entertain the public, while also providing a place for scientific research and simulation training.

Roughly $22.3 million later, the 53,330-square-meter base is now complete, welcoming its first public attendees on Friday.

The Global Times claims that the project’s founder, Gao Junling, told the newspaper that visitors to the base will have a chance to “immerse themselves in the environment and try to solve problems they might face on Mars, such as planting potatoes on Mars for food supply and solar power generation.”

Next-Best Thing

As Mars-like as the setting of China’s Mars simulation base might be, it’s still far more hospitable to humans than Mars — anyone visiting the Red Planet will need to contend with its low air pressure, stronger radiation, and regular sandstorms, Peking University space science professorJiao Weixin told The Global Times.

Still, if the base can provide researchers with an approximation of Mars for their experiments, while also getting the public — and young people, in particular — excited about space exploration, it could have a positive role to play in shaping humanity’s space-faring future.

All Bots Go to Heaven

Jibo, the company selling anthropomorphic dancing smart home assistants that were meant to make your life at home easier, laid off most of its employees last year. And now the bot itself is ready to say goodbye — forever.

“I want to say I’ve really enjoyed our time together,” the robot says in a video posted by tech reporter Dylan Martin. “Thank you very very much for having me around.”

The servers for Jibo the social robot are apparently shutting down. Multiple owners report that Jibo himself has been delivering the news: “Maybe someday when robots are way more advanced than today, and everyone has them in their homes, you can tell yours that I said hello.” pic.twitter.com/Sns3xAV33h

Jibo was founded by MIT robotics professor Cynthia Breazeal in 2012. But it didn’t have a lot going for it when it finally went on sale in 2017, with a steep price of $900. Needless to say, the idea never really took off.

“The servers out there that let me do what I do are going to be turned off soon,” says Jibo in its goodbye message. “Once that happens, our interactions with each other are going to be limited.”

Goodbye for Now

Since Jibo’s demise, the landscape of smart home assistants has changed radically, with companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple making record sales with their smart assistant offerings. Amazon’s Alexa-based smart home assistants became one of the e-commerce giant’s hottest selling items.

But even with its servers shutting down, Jibo isn’t entirely ready to say goodbye.

“Maybe some day, when robots are way more advanced than today and everyone has them in their homes, you can tell yours that I said hello,” Jibo says in its farewell message.